Chaos Infinitium
by Sysero of Cain
Summary: First Contact never seems to go well. But things could always be worse. What happens when civilizations that were never supposed to meet come across each other? Many Many things. Some OC's but has Shepard and Master Chief. Now Abandoned. Version 2.0 Pending...
1. Discovery

**Hi, name's Sysero. Thank you for clicking on this story. I'm a first time writer so, kid gloves please. I've read A LOT of fanfiction and I've noticed the trend for ME and Halo is for one to dominate the other. I will try to make combat as equal as possible but keep in mind the Physics behind these universes are a little skewed. **

**For example: A dreadnought can propel a 22 lb projectile 1.2% the speed of light. A UNSC frigate can propel a projectile that is WAAAAY bigger(600 tons) at speeds of 30 km/sec. It's around the difference between a needle going at Mach 2 and a .45 cal going at Mach 1. One is going to hurt like an bitch, the other is going to kill you. No matter where it hits. The dreadnought can fire one shot every two seconds but will suffer from MASSIVE overheating. Like "inside of volcano" overheating. A Frigate can fire a shot every 20-30 seconds with out any serious effects other than power loss. Other UNSC ships can fire faster and larger rounds more often. And then there are the Super MAC's. If aimed at a planet it is hypothesized that the Super MAC would crack the planets crust and trigger seismic disasters all over it. It will also shift the planet's axis. Yeah, they are mean motherfuckers.**

**But the rule that the Covenant trumps all in space still stands. The shields on their ships are strong enough absorb around three mac shots before caving and their guns can shred just about anything. Supercarriers are around 27 Kilometers long and are nearly impossible to destroy unless you are using a Super MAC.**

**Also, a Halo has around the same circumference as Earth. The citadel is only around a 12 kilometers in diameter. Yeah, it's smaller. By A LOT.**

**I have taken the liberty of adding ideas other authors have created. If you don't like the way I have used your brain-child then PM me. I will edit it out.**

**Any ways, without further ado, here is the first chapter of Chaos Infinitium. It's mainly plot set up.**

* * *

**Turian Dreadnought **_**Carrias**_

**Unknown Regions**

Captain Vyrrgus Cartorus scratched his right mandible as he surveyed the scans of the massive ring structure his ship was monitoring. It was big alright, much bigger than any Prothean structure to date. The Citadel itself could fit inside its diameter with room to spare. It was orbiting a green gas-giant around a twin star system. A small task force had inadvertently discovered the structure two weeks ago when pursuing Batarian pirates. The discovery had been hushed up and only a select few scientists had been informed. The research team had been landed on the Ring just two hours ago. He turned to his XO.

"Any word from the exploratory force?" He asked.

The XO nodded, "We have an incoming transmission."

He turned to the bridge's holo-projector, "Patch it through."

The face of a Salarian dressed in a white and black hard-suit appeared.

_"Ah, Captain. Good. We have determined the Ring has a stable atmosphere. We have found no evidence of inherent organic life other than several minuscule insectoid species and several larger reptilian types mainly herbivorous. Unusually, we have found several probe like constructs which appear to serve as maintenance workers similar to the Keepers. Previous Prothean worlds did not have any vestiges of working technology other than some minor devices. These drones are also built differently than most Prothean technology. Some of the structures we have found are also much more angular and streamlined. At this time we have not determined what this facility's purpose is but we are continuing to search. That is all."_

Cartorus sighed, _Not much to report to the Council then. Can't believe they sent a Spectre all the way out here for this let alone a whole battle-group._

An Asari Spectre by the name of Syrana L'vori had been assigned to look over the mission. Rumor was she was barely a hundred years old and could crush tanks with her Biotics. In addition to the Spectre, a battle-group consisting of the _Carrias,_ 4 cruisers, 8 destroyers and 12 Frigates had been assigned to the mission.

_By Palaven, I can't believe we're putting so many resources into this mission. It's not likely anything's going to attack._

Little did he know, at the edge of the system...

* * *

**Bridge of UNSC _Nightwing-_class Stealth Frigate _Into the Night_**

**May 22, 2756**

**Edge of Arias System...**

Captain Elias Sage knew that he had a significant situation in his hands. He was an aging man, in his 120's, with steel gray hair and craggy face. In all his years of serving in the Navy, he had never been in a situation like this. An unknown alien civilization was prodding around on a Halo. _On a fucking HALO_. For all he knew they could be another Covenant. A week ago he had jumped into the system on a routine scouting mission and had somehow found a Halo along with a new alien species. Immediately he had contacted HIGHCOM on Reach in order to report the situation. No response was forthcoming. He had the ship's resident A.I. attempt to diagnose the link disruption but all seemed to be fine on both ends. Sage knew that the Hood Protocol demanded that he secure the Activation Index at all cost or failing that destroy the Halo. Unfortunately, he was outnumbered and out-gunned and the chances of his completing the mission would be next to none.

The _Night _was around half a kilometer in length but armed to the teeth. It was powered with a highly experimental Fusion Power core that could power the ship for a near infinite amount of time. It was armed with a spinal MAC gun refitted with plasma rounds, 50 Sagitarrius missile pods, 3 SHIVA Heavy Nukes, 24 FURY Tactical Nukes, and around 50 laser CIWIS. It carried 4 D79-TC1 Pelican equipped with Stealth Ablative Plating, 4 Type-52 "Phantom" Troop Carriers, 1 Albatross, 3 Type 32 XMF "Seraph II" Interceptors, 3 YSS-2000 "Sabre II" Interceptors, 6 GA-TL2 Longsword multi-purpose fighters, 1 M312 "Elephant" Heavy Recovery Vehicle, 4 M808D "Scorpion" MBTs, 9 M14 "Warthog" LRVs, 3 equipped with Chainguns, 3 equipped with Gauss Cannons, 3 Troop Transport Variants, 3 Spectre AGLRVs, 6 Ghost SLRVs, and a trio of Juggernaut Assault Suits.

The Juggernaut Assault suit was the evolution of the Cyclops Anti-Fortification Suit. It stood at 3 meters tall and normally carried a Gauss Chaingun on it's right arm and a heavy Gauss Cannon on it's left but could be outfitted with other weapons as well. It had Ion Boosters built into it's back and feet allowing it to leap huge distances and hover to an extent. When in close combat, they could activate Plasma Lances, effectively huge Plasma Swords on each hand. They were fearsome weapons and could only be piloted by specially trained recruits.

In addition to the large selection of heavy armor, a complement of 50 Marines, 20 ODSTs, 20 SpecOps Sangheili, 20 SpecOps Unggoy, a Mgalekgolo Bond pair, 3 Huragok and 3 Spartan IV's accompanied the _Night._

Unlike their precursors, the Spartan IV's were all volunteers recruited from the various branches of the UNSC Military. Each was given special augmentations similar to the ones given to the original Spartan-I's that gave them improved strength, speed, and senses. They were the best of the best but even they paled in comparison to the near mythical Spartan II's. Only with their MJOLNIR Mark VII armor could they even come close to being compared with the legendary Demons. But they were good, a three man squad capable of decimating entire armies when armed with the right equipment.

The _Night _was supposed to carry special forces for deployment behind enemy lines and to launch surprise attacks on key targets. Nightwings were supposed to be combat variant of the older ONI Prowlers but the cost of producing them had made them rather rare. Unusually, the _Night _had been outfitted with a Forerunner Mass Transit Grid, effectively, the teleportation grid of the Halos. It could only be used for ship-to-ship boarding as the grid did not have enough of a range to beam down to a planet.

Sage sighed, "Victor."

The holo-tank behind him activated and the figure of a smartly dressed man in a ONI Officer's uniform manifested inside of it. He was dark haired with a bookish face and a pair of spectacles balanced on the tip of his nose.

"Yes, Captain?" questioned a crisp English voice through the bridge speakers.

"Put us on Red Alert, and start defrosting the Spartans. See if you can hack into the Unknown fleet's communications and start formulating a translation program. And tell Sergeant Kunnath to get his squad up here. He'll be leading first-recon on the Halo."

"Oh, he won't like that"

Sage glared at Victor's smirking avatar.

"And why not?" He growled.

"He's in the middle of a chess game."

* * *

**UNSC _Into the Night_**

**Officers Lounge...**

Sergeant Major Vijay Kunnath calmly moved his knight into it's final position, "Checkmate."

Opposite from him sat his long-time friend and second-in-command Sangheili SpecOps Officer Theras Kedum who had once again been trounced.

"I don't know how you do it, Jay," Theras laughed. "You always have a back-up plan."

"Call it a side effect from not leaving my first battle with most of my body intact.

Jay stood up and stretched his arms out. One was flesh and bone but the other was pure metal. He was a little over 6 ft tall with black eyes, short black hair, and brown skin. He was in his twenties and could expect another century or so of life. His face might have once been handsome but was marred with several twisting scars and a cybernetic left eye. Both legs were artificial as well and it was thought his voice was synthesized. His Sangheili counter-part stood at nearly 8 ft with grayish skin and significant scarring across his throat.

"Do you mean literally?" Theras smirked.

"Yep, memory wafers in my brain along with positronic synapse stimulators." Jay smiled.

"One would call that unfair."

"Well, I'm not taking them out any time soon."

An alert popped up on Jay's eye HUD and he opened it through his CNI.

"Well, Theras, looks like today won't be such a drag after all. Razor Team has been ordered to the Bridge, Captain has something for us."

Theras smiled, "Finally! Something to do!"

They exited the Lounge and made their way to the Grav-lift. Ever since the end of the Human-Covenant War, over two-hundred years ago, camaraderie had been developing between humanity and the former member species of the Covenant. The San'shyum and the Brutes had been pushed back to a small section of space that was patrolled by no less than the entirety of 5th Fleet and over two-hundred Subspace Detection Installations. The integration of the Covenant's technology with the UNSC's ships went over well and gave birth to a new line of incredibly strong warships.

Jay and Theras made their way to the bridge once exiting the lift. Standing before the 6 foot thick, plasma shielded, Titanium- A doors of the Bridge, they went stock still as the bio-scanners verified their genetic signatures. If there was even a minor discrepancy in the DNA of the organism attempting entry, they would be vaporized by the twelve A.I. controlled plasma turrets hidden in alcoves around the corridor.

The Shields deactivated and the doors slid open. Jay and Theras walked inside and up to the gantry that was facing the holo-tank. It appeared the rest of Razor Squad had also received the summons to the bridge.

Leaning against the gantry was another Sangheili. He was black-skinned, nearing 7 ft, and fiddling around with a complex mechanism in his hand. Ortin Farthas was a Sangheili Minor and a technophile. He was considered to be Razor Squads tech-specialist. Only around 50 years old, he was barely more than a child by Sangheili standards. He often struggled to prove that he was worth something and was a little bit reckless due to that.

Two Unggoy, named Malwa and Orfal, were chattering away in their own language next to the holo-tank. They both specialized in demolitions and were considered "unstable". Jay wasn't fluent in Balahan but he caught the words "incinerate" and "explosion". He hoped they weren't planning anything ...unorthodox.

Since the end of the Human-Covenant War, the Unggoy's society had been improving steadily. The Unggoy were intelligent and without the constant oppression from the upper classes of the Covenant, earned a reputation as skilled soldiers and engineers. Squads of well trained Unggoy could accomplish objectives as easily as other races and sometimes more efficiently. Since the bulky methane packs had been scaled down, the Unggoy were harder to hit than before and large groups of them became nightmares to even veteran soldiers.

The last member of Razor Team was human. Gunnery Sergeant Faye Winters was dark-haired, lean, tanned, and beautiful. It was wondered why she wasn't a model back in the Inner Colonies instead of an ODST. Jay couldn't help admiring her figure. Somehow she managed to make a tank-top and fatigues look sexy. She looked over her shoulder at him and gave him a glare. He grinned sheepishly before turning to the Captain.

Jay snapped a salute. "Razor Team assembled, Sir!"

Sage grunted, "Good."

He motioned towards the holo-projector. An image of the Halo appeared.

"As you all know, we have found one of the Forerunner installations known as Halo. The last time a Halo was found was in 2552 near the end of the Human-Covenant War by the UNSC cruiser _Pillar of Autumn_. It's existence of course helped to end the War. Since the Hood Protocol demands any and all Halos be "defused" or destroyed we have no choice but to secure the Activation Index.

"This is where you come in. Razor Team will attempt to secure the Control Room while the Spartans secure the Index. Both are useless without the other."

Faye piped up, "What about the Unknown's Fleet, sir?"

Sage sighed, "That is where the complications come in. Normally, we would go in, secure the Index, then have some scientists study the Ring but in this case we have to do it in absolute secrecy. The Unknown's pose a threat and we have to keep them from finding out anything about the Halo."

"What if we encounter hostile forces?" Ortin asked. "Should we initiate First Contact?"

"Only as a last resort. Attempt to keep a low profile. We will be deploying you via Mass Transit to the Cartographer's Isle."

The point was highlighted in yellow on the image of the Halo.

"You will have to make your way to the Control room from there."

A yellow line was traced down into the depths of the Ring.

"Secure the room and make sure nothing can get through. Attempt to make contact with the Monitor. We can use the Sentinels to help secure the Activation Index."

"Captain," came the crisp voice of Victor. "I have succeeded in hacking into the Unknown's communications. I think you should see this."

Sage turned, "Bring it up, Victor."

The image of the Halo disappeared and was replaced with the image of an alien with an elongated face and bulbous eyes. It resembled an amphibian and appeared to be panicking. Flashes of light and the distinct thuds of firearms were seen and heard behind it.

"_Captain! We are under attack! We need reinforce- ARGH!" _The alien was cut off when a bright yellow beam hit it in the back.

The feed cut off and the bridge was silient.

"Looks like we better get down there, Captain," Malwa said. "They're getting slaughtered by the Sentinels."

Victor's avatar appeared in the holo-tank, "Captain, I have managed to access information that may interest you. The ships belong to a Faction known as the "Council". I have a full data package for you to go over but I would advocate you making First Contact ASAP if we want to avoid hostilities. Technically, that Halo is ours, you know."

"I'll get to it Victor. First get Razor Team on the Halo. That trumps anything else right now."

"Understood, Sir."

Jay saluted, "We'll be getting armored up sir."

Sage nodded, "Dismissed."

* * *

**UNSC _Into the Night_**

**Armory...**

Jay stepped into the Armoire and let it do it's job. A neural tap was inserted into his CNI and his armor was assembled around him. A chestplate was locked over his torso, bracers on his arms, greaves on his legs, a helmet came down over his head and the entire assembly locked together.

The Trident Mark IV Powered Assault Armor was a soldiers dream come true. Power Armor had long been the field of only the Spartans but with the advent of the Trident even the average infantry man became a force to be reckoned with. Integrated shields, active camouflage, strength and speed enhancement, Bio-gel applicants, a Cortical Interface Network, the Trident had it all. It resembled the original ODST Battle Dress Uniform but more streamlined and with thicker armor plates.

Jay's own armor had been customized. A skull in the shape of the Ace of Spades was etched into the faceplate and several white flame decals had been added to the armor's plates. He walked over the the weapon rack and pulled out a MA9D ICWS Assault Rifle, slapped a magazine of FMJ rounds into it and checked the readout.

Since the end of the Human-Covenant War, the UNSC had been reconfiguring it's weapons. Chemical gas propellant had been replaced with Magnetic Accelerators built into the length of the barrel. This made it an overall more effective weapon. Higher armor penetration, larger ammo capacity, faster rate of fire, and increased accuracy were all upsides to the newer weaponry. All weapons used by the UNSC had been upgrade to the new technology but the switch had been strained. Misriah Armories had refused to switch over initially stating that they had inefficient funding. The UNSC retaliated by completely buying out Misriah and initiating the change themselves.

Jay's picked up an M9G Magnum, selected a mag of High-Explosive rounds and inserted them into the handgun. Putting the Magnum in a docker clutch under his left arm he then selected a M135 Tactical Shotgun and loaded 12 shells into it. He slid it into the harness on his back and grabbed several bandoliers of ammo and grenades, backpack loaded with essentials and a fourteen inch Combat Knife. Strapping the assembly onto his torso he turned and faced his squad.

Theras appeared to be fine-tuning the calibration in his Beam Assault Rifle. The BAR was the evolution of the Beam Rifle into a close range weapon. It retained the same basic shape of the Beam Rifle but significantly smaller. A stock extended from behind the barrel to provide increased stability. It could fire semi-automatic or in three round bursts, maximizing efficiency. It was powered by small fusion cells that gave the rifle twenty shots a clip.

Theras's armor was purplish-black with an enclosing helm with three swept back spikes denoting him as an officer. Etched into the plates of the armor were lines of Old Sangheili, giving blessing of strength and speed to the wearer. He had strapped to his waist two Plasma Swords along with several grenades. On his wrists, Energy Dagger gauntlets hummed smoothly. At the small of his back was a Plasma Rifle. Above it, a small pack contained more ammo and supplies. Finishing his tune-ups, Theras grunted and loaded a fresh cell into the gun.

Ortin was once again fiddling around with the device in his hand as he leaned against the wall. At his feet lay a Needle Shotgun with it's casing open. It's name was pretty self explanatory.

_If he is fiddling around with the firing mechanism, _Jay mused_. It'll end up badly. For either the enemy or him._

Ortin's armor was similar to Theras's except without the spikes or inscriptions. A Plasma Pistol and several grenades were attached to his belt along with several tools of various types. He also had a backpack on the floor beside him. An Energy Dagger was attached to his left wrist.

Malwa and Orfal were both toting around heavy weapons. Malwa was carrying a Plasma Launcher and Orfal was hefting a Fuel Rod Cannon. Most people would laugh at the sight of the diminutive aliens carrying weapons larger than themselves but Jay knew that they were artists with explosives. He couldn't discern what else they were carrying under the massive guns.

Faye was sighting down her SRS100D-S1 Sniper Rifle. On her hips was a M11 Caseless SMG and a M7D Magnum. A Combat Knife was strapped to her chest and a second knife was attached to her leg. _She was still pretty sexy in her armor,_ Jay noted. As if she heard his thoughts Faye looked up and glared at him. _How does she do that?_

Jay turned and walked over to the far end of the armory. This end was connected to the Engineering Bay and the Firing Range. Here was where the techs worked with their tools to repair and upgrade the equipment on the _Night_. However, there was one man Jay needed to find before he was deployed. Screaming at two other engineers in the process of dismantling a Gauss Cannon was a slim, spectacled, gray-haired man dressed in white lab-coat.

"NOOO! If you take that power capacitator out then the superconductors will become inert and the entire assembly will be ruined!" The man had a rather high-pitched voice and seemed to not be in the habit of using it much.

"But Chief-"

"NO BUTS! Put it back and let the Huragok deal with it! At least the gasbags know what they're doing!"

The two technicians looked at each other and shrugged. They both walked off and soon became involved in other projects.

The slim man sighed, "and if today couldn't get any worse..."

"Hey, Lloyd?"

The man, now identified as Lloyd, spun around and smiled like a kid on Christmas Morning, "If it isn't my favorite cyborg! What do I get to fiddle around with this time, Jay?"

"Nothing, I'm here to see if your "Project" is finis-"

"Oh pooh, I never get to fiddle around with your cognetics anymore. Fine, come with me."

Lloyd turned toward a workbench that was not as cluttered at the ones around it.

_I suppose that being Chief Engineer allows him to drop some of the menial things he does to someone else_. Jay mused.

On the bench was an arm. Heavily armored and painted black it looked like something made for war. Jay supposed it was.

"Here it is, Sergeant. Your brand-spanking-new arm. Coiled with Titanium-A mono-filaments and mercury silicide superconductors. It should serve you pretty well. It also has a little "special something" that you might need in a pinch."

"What?"

Lloyd told him. Jay smiled.

The links holding his current arm disengaged with a mental flick from his CNI. The feeling of empty space instead of an arm was very hard to get used to. The new arm was lifted an fitted into place. The cybernetic moved as fluidly as a real arm but could crush a human skull with a thought. _The perfect melee weapon, _Jay thought.

"Thanks Lloyd, I owe you one."

"Not a problem Sergeant. Bring me back some combat data."

"Will do."

By the time he got back his team had finished their various activities and were waiting for him.

Ortin noticed the new arm first, "Nice arm, sir."

"No fiddling around with it Ortin. Not after last time."

There was a round of chuckles.

"Well, males, and female." Jay said with a nod to Faye. "Time to hit the ground."

"Remember, this is may well be the most important mission of our lives. The fate of an entire galaxy hangs in the balance. Yeah, that's effing corny but it's true. Don't die and get to the Control Room. Are we clear?"

"Yes Sir!" came the answer.

* * *

**Whew. That is 4,000 words right there. While writing this chapter I was listening to Feel Good Drag by Anberlin and Bullet Soul by Switchfoot. Doesn't fit the mood but their good songs in my opinion. Also, the OC's you see right now are based off of people I know. Jay is the name of my Best Friend who requested to be in this fic. Faye is another friend who requested the name Faye. The references to her sexiness are to annoy her. Basically, a bunch of my characters are requests made by friends. I have also inserted myself into the story. Can you guess which character? Also, if you can identify the reference to a popular anime in this chapter you get one free flame. I might implement it if it is good.**

**ALSO PLEASE REVIEW! I NEED FEEDBACK IN ORDER TO MAKE THE STORY BETTER. THIS MEANS YOU GRAMMAR NAZI'S. YES, I WANT YOUR HELP!**

**Till next time**

**Lord Inquistor Sysero of Cain**

**Ordo Malleus**

**(How many of you get this reference?)**

**Change Log: Changed Unggoy language to Balahan. Also if you can identify me in the story you get one free flame. And now some stuff about the Night's armament.**


	2. Rising Action

**Well, thanks for the reviews people, I really appreciate them. Despite the lack of overwhelming criticism they were decent. Could use some more of them though. I mean seriously? I got quite a few favorites and Alert Subscriptions but only 15 reviews! C'mon people I need more to make the story better. My writing style is rather weak so I need feedback to make it better.**

**Answering some of the anonymous reviews.**

**The Thinker- Jesus, how long did it take to write that? Just so you know I did my research before hand. Some of the stuff in there I already knew. Unfortunately, only the _Pillar of Autumn _was equipped with the MAC gun you were referencing. A standard UNSC frigate fires much slower but still does the whole heat capture thing. I'm using Sagittarius Missile pods, basically the evolution of the Archer missile pod. The rest I already knew.**

**Lord Primarus- Ah ah ah *wags finger* You didn't find the reference so no flame for you. Also, how the _hell_ would I explain that? I just _might_ make the Turians lives hell. I dunno yet. All of Mass Effect struck me as poorly set up. Might make that a default Spartan gun though. Maybe the Spartan Assault Rifle, SAR for short. Yeah, that sounds good. But first find a reference _then_ I'll implement it.**

**Jacob- Some decent questions.**

**1. I really don't know. Depends on what everyone else wants. Hey, any of you guys want the Master Chief to be in this story?**

**2. Of Course, just keep reading.**

**3. Yep, might need a vote for that one though.**

**4. You'll see. ;)**

**5. I don't see why not.**

**6. Yes, the Spartan IIIs were better, but Project ORION was by no means a failure. It took existing marines and turned them into super-soldiers with no dropouts whatsoever. This is part of the reason why Johnson is immune to Flood Infection and why Mendez is still in amazing physical condition. The Spartan III's took decades to finish though. They were similar to the Spartan II's in that they were raised from childhood to be soldiers but their enhancements weren't as effective and most of them were killed in Operation TORPEDO. The Spartan III Betas that were trained on Onyx were complete failures (in my opinion). Even if they were effective in combat their drug addiction would probably kill them once taken out of the Military. Plus too many psychological defects.**

**Yeah, that's about it. here is the second chapter of Chaos Infinitium.**

* * *

**Turian Dreadnought _Carrias_**

**Combat Information Center...**

Captain Cartorus was not in a good mood. What had seemed like a simple enough assignment had gone completely wrong. There were no transmissions incoming from the Science Team and he had no idea what kind of opposition was on the Ring's surface. The Mantis gunships were loading up with marines, and Cabal units were already en route to the structure's surface. Very little had been gleaned from the last transmission of the Science team but whatever was down there had apparently killed all 20 of the marines that had accompanied the them. It didn't help that the Spectre that had been down there was unaccounted for as well. Barely twenty seconds had elapsed when all transmissions had ceased from the surface.

His XO was busy with the Comm Officer examining the footage. They were still trying to determine what had happened down there. Unfortunately, barely anything was discernible beyond the Salarian who had been speaking. The XO was frowning at the sight of the beam piercing the Salarian's back. There was something there that didn't sit right with him.

_This doesn't look right. There's no flare of his shields going down. They aren't being damaged._

"Gardol, zoom in a little."

The edge of the Doctor's shields and the beam became larger in the screen. There were no ripples whatsoever from the shield. The yellow beam seemed to pass right _through_ the barriers.

_Almost like a Directed Energy Weapon. The Captain should know about this._

"Captain, there's something you should see."

"What is it?" Cartorus asked while he walked over.

The XO showed him the footage and highlighted the main point.

"Our troops probably won't last long against what ever's down there if our shields are ineffective. We would probably need thicker armor."

"Send a communique out to refit all troops with heavier armor. Make sure they have thicker _physical _plates. Call the Cabal Units back. I don't want to lo-"

"Captain! We have an incoming transmission!"

"Source?"

The Comm Officer checked, "It appears to be coming from... the Ring."

The bridge went silent.

"Patch it through." Cartorus said silently.

The projector at the center of the CIC activated, the image of a Turian appeared.

"_Captain! Thank Palaven!"_ The turian had several burns on his face and there were bandages wrapped around his arm. Behind him an asari was supporting another turian who was missing a leg. The light in the area was low and the camera angle was skewed giving the entire scene a haphazard air.

"What happened down there-" Cartorus glanced at the rank marker on the marines shoulder,"-Captain?"

"_Those damn probes, sir! One moment they were fine, just floating around, then the next second they were tearing us to shreds. If it wasn't for the Spectre, the four of us would be dead."_

Cartorus sighed, "Give me a sitrep, Captain"

_"Me, Lieutenant Vakarian, the Spectre, and Doctor T'soni are the only survivors. Everyone else was killed by the probes."_

"_I suppose we are lucky we survived._" came the voice of an asari off-screen. "_Those beams went right through our barriers._"

"_Don't I know it._" came the grunt of the injured turian.

"_Garrus, be careful. We don't want to aggravate your wounds" _said the asari supporting him. "_I had a hard enough time applying the medi-gel the first time around."_

"Where are you right now?" Cartorus asked.

"_We escaped into the tunnels on the inside of the structure." _the off-screen asari- Dr. T'soni- said. "_For some reason the probes did not follow us."_

_"Got lucky there, huh?" _Vakarian muttered.

_"Shut-up and let the medi-gel do it's work."_ The Spectre said.

"_Captain, can we get ev- What was that?" _The Captain said.

A hissing sound was heard off screen.

"_What the- WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT?" _The Captain screamed.

He raised his rifle and began spraying rounds at something off-screen. There was a snarl and something with a basic humanoid figure jumped on him and started slashing at his chest. The other survivors also opened fire on the creature. Suddenly, a biotic Warp flooded the entire screen and the signal was lost.

The CIC was silent once again.

"Rewind to 2:44." Cartorus ordered.

The transmission moved backward to the requested time-slot. The creature that had jumped on the Captain's chest filled the holo-screen. It appeared to be a salarian but horribly twisted. Two long tentacles had emerged from it's left arm and it had turned a sickly shade of green. An unusual growth was protruding from it's chest and more tentacles emerged from it's mouth. Clutched in the remants of its right hand was an M-4 Shuriken SMG.

Cartorus slowly turned to face the all his personnel. They were staring at him at him, waiting for instructions.

"Get all combat personnel reequipped ASAP. That is the current priority. I want all of our mechs loaded onto the Mantis's and dropped off to establish a base. Refit all weaponry with either Armor Piercing or Shredder Rounds. I want all ships on Priority One Combat Status. If we have to, we will blow that Ring apart. Am I understood?"

"Yes Sir!".

* * *

**UNSC _Into the Night_**

**Bridge...**

The constant stream of expletives being issued from Sage's mouth was enough to make even the most hardened marine blush. The bridge operators were all staring wide-eyed at the Captain as he paced around the bridge. Here was the man who had faced down Covenant Assault Carriers without so much as flinching cursing up a storm at a video clip.

"Captain! Please, calm down! Your present emotional state will not facilitate any positive solutions to this situation!" Victor, ever the pragmatist. Of course, being an A.I. he didn't actually have much of an emotional cortex.

The storm of expletives stopped and Sage groaned and covered his face with his hands.

"Well isn't this great! Now the Flood have escaped containment! If anything could get worse it could..."

"Well here's some good news; incoming transmission from HIGHCOM on Reach."

Sage spun around, "Finally! Bring it up!"

The image of a smartly dressed man in an Admiral's uniform appeared in the tank. He was old, white haired, with a wrinkled face. Despite the obvious signs of old age, he was still powerfully built and gave off an obvious aura of command. This was Lord Admiral Jasper Cutter, commander of the entire United Nations Space Command, and effectively the de facto ruler of all humanity due to Martial Law.

"Lord Cutter," Sage said. "It's about time. We have a p-"

"I know Captain." Cutter cut him off. "I've read all the transmissions you've sent. But that isn't our only problem. Although finding a new alien empire would be an unusual development along with the discovery of the Halo we have much bigger fish to fry. Two weeks ago, a massive Covenant fleet broke through the Armistice Line. Fifth fleet was decimated and four planets in the immediate sector were glassed."

Sage felt his blood go cold, "No wonder they've been silent for so long."

Cutter nodded, "We estimate at least a thousand ships. Only reason anything out of Fifth fleet survived was because Admrial Hackett's retinue arrived at Hassal too late. It had had already been glassed by the time they got there."

"Damn. Is there anything you can send?"

Cutter smirked a little, "Don't worry Captain. We've already gathered most of the surviving ships from Fifth fleet into an impromptu battelgroup. It's been designated "Reclaimer"."

Sage chuckled at the joke, "When will they arrive, sir?"

"Hopefully in a day or two. Slipspace currents have been acting up ever since the Covenant Fleet broke through. We're not even sure if our communications are secure let alone our ships. Till then though, you'll have to hold out on your own. For all we know they could arrive in the next hour. Attempt to make contact with this "Council" Fleet and convince them to abandon the Halo."

"What will I be getting?"

Cutter pulled a data-pad out of a pocket "9 _Bucephalus-_class Frigates, 12 _Templar-_class missile Frigates, 7 _Hydra-_ class Destroyers, 5 _Marathon II- _class Cruisers, 2 _Artemis- _class Battleships, a _Trafalgar-_ class Carrier , and the _Void Dragon._

Sage's eyes bulged, _"_You're sending a Dreadnought? I thought we were holding them in reserve for an emergency."

"A Covenant fleet just broke through the Armistice Line. I think this counts, Captain. We can't afford to lose this Halo."

Dreadnoughts were the result of two-hundred years of engineering focused on one class of ship. They were seventeen kilometers long, plated with over twelve meters of Titanium-A and it's shields could take one hell of a pounding. It was armed with no less than six rotary spinal MAC guns, twelve dual-barreled Particle Accelerator Turrets, four Energy Projector Turrets, four-hundred oversized Sagitarrius missile pods, and over a thousand laser CIWIS turrets. They were dedicated to space combat and carried no fighters whatsoever. It was assumed that nothing would really survive combat with it, excluding Covenant Supercarriers. There were currently twelve of them in service with nineteen more in construction.

Sage saluted, "Understood, Sir. We'll make do till then."

Cutter nodded, "Godspeed Captain. Remember; all of the sentient species in this galaxy are counting on you."

Victor popped up in the Holo-Tank, "Razor Team is ready for deployment. Shall I maneuver us above the ring?"

"Affirmative. Get the Transit Grid powered up. I want them on the ground within an hour."

"What about making first contact?"

"Prepare the transmission."

"Understood."

* * *

**Fleet of Divine Wrath**

**CCS Super-Carrier _Rage of the Gods_**

**Chamber of Contemplation...**

The Prophet of Vengeance was not a patient San'Shyum. He had planned his entire life for this moment, when he would lead the Fleet of Divine Wrath against the Humans and Traitor Species and blast them into oblivion. But there was a new development. Something that could change the entire face of his mad crusade.

"They found WHAT?" He roared.

The Brute Chieftain in front of him, Margorusk, growled in the affirmative, "We intercepted a transmission from a small ship belonging to the humans. They confirmed they had found one of the Sacred Rings sire. Their message was damaged but we could trace it back to the source. A single battlegroup could overwhelm them completely."

Vengeance smiled, "I want to oversee this myself. Redirect us and the _Will of the Prophets_ along with our support ships."

"Yes, your Holiness."

* * *

**UNSC _Into the Night_**

**Transit Grid Station...**

Gunnery Sergeant Faye Winters was not a person who was distressed easily. She had faced down rampaging Brute Chieftains armed with nothing but her combat knife and barely broken a sweat. However, she was shaking like a rookie at the thought of facing the Flood. She had heard the stories from the Human-Covenant War. How they twisted you up to serve the Gravemind, how the infection process was pure agony, how they didn't even leave you alone once you died. They were nightmares and were the worst fears of nearly every sentient being. But she understood the implications. Unless they secured the control room and contacted the monitor it was likely the Flood could escape aboard on of the Council's Ships. And if that happened, every single life-form in the Galaxy was screwed.

She looked at her commanding officer, Sergeant Major Kunnath. He was conversing through sign language with one of the Huragok. Said Huragok had plugged itself in to the Transit Control Nexus and was currently reconfiguring the Transit system.

"I suppose you are nervous about this mission, correct?" came a voice behind her.

She looked over shoulder. Ortin was, for once, not fiddling with a mechanical device.

"Yeah. How about you?"

He shrugged, "I suppose, I was raised for battle but I am apprehensive about fighting the Flood. Even Thel Vadam feared the Flood."

"Well, we'll see." She said as she turned to walk to the Transfer Points.

"Do you want me to kill you?"

Faye spun around, "What the FUCK?"

Ortin held his hands up defensively, "I mean if you are infected by the Flood. Do you want me to kill you before you are assimilated?"

Faye paused, "I never thought of that."

"It does not have to be me. I just thought that it would be a good thing to remember."

"I really don't know Ortin. Perhaps. I won't know till I'm dead will I?"

"I suppose."

Jay chose that moment to walk over. "Are we all set team?"

"Yes sir. Are we good to go?"

"Yeah, just need to input coordinates and we'll be on our way."

They took their positions on the Grid.

A synthesized voice came from the speakers above their heads, "Slipspace micro-generator spooling up, identifying transfer subjects, locking in coordinates. Transfer commencing in 5... 4... 3... 2... 1... Transfer commencing."

A flash of light and they were gone.

* * *

**UNSC _Into the Night_**

**Artificial Intelligence Hub...**

VCT-002546 Designation "Victor" was always a careful A.I.. Even as he aged he found that the one thing that separated him from other A.I.'s of his class was his overwhelming need to quadruple or quintuple check his own calculations. He supposed it came from his creator, Victor Amadeus, who was renowned to be a control freak. Sometimes it was unnecessary but other times he caught little things that might of slipped by.

He examined the Transfer of Razor Team into the gravitational well of the Halo. All was proceeding smoothly. No fluctuations from the power capacitators, nothing was going wrong.

Suddenly, there were other fluctuations in the field. Victor immediately checked the Transfer from the control room. Nothing had been changed. The fluctuations were coming from elsewhere. Victor ran the calculations as raced to identify their sources.

_These fluctuations could alter Razor Team's deployment coordinates. I would need to adjus-_

His cycle was cut off when a massive fluctuation immediately caught Razor Team and scattered them all over the Ring.

Victor was frozen for just one second, an eternity to an A.I., before he indulged himself in some cursing.

* * *

**UNSC _Into the Night_**

**Bridge...**

"YOU MEAN TO TELL ME THAT RAZOR TEAM'S DEPLOYMENT WAS FUBARED?" Sage roared.

Victor's avatar rolled it's eyes, "Their deployment was fine, they have simply not landed where we wanted them to."

"WELL, WHY THE FUCK NOT?"

"Opposing signals from the Halo's Teleportation Grid threw them off. They are unharmed according to their Vitals but they are separated."

Sage pinched the bridge of his nose with his thumb and index finger, "Get me a link to them."

"I've been trying, sir. It may take another hour to establish a link."

Sage cursed again. Then he pulled a cigarette pack from the pocket of his overcoat, pulled one out and lit it.

"You know that's against regulations, right?" Victor asked.

"I don't give a damn. Everything that could go wrong has gone wrong, Victor."

"I beg to differ, Captain. Many more things could go wrong than what has already happened. I would suggest that you do not tempt Fate. She is a fickle mistress."

"Shut up, Victor."

Several minutes passed in silence. Victor spun up some subroutines, the A.I. equivalent of drumming his fingers. He then observed the camera feed from the female locker room.

Victor's avatar sighed, "Should I open the comms to the Council Fleet? I have already locked the frequency in and the translation matrix is loaded. I have also taken the liberty of uploading a data package to your CNI. You should be receiving it right about ... now"

The alert popped up in his eye implants. Sage opened and let the information suffuse his brain.

"Might as well get it over with." Sage said putting out the cigarette.

* * *

**Turian Dreadnought _Carrias_**

**Combat Information Center...**

Ensign Gardol Forth took his job as Communications officer seriously. Maintaining all the _Carrias_'s transmissions was an important job, one that he couldn't mess up. But when an unusual signal was picked up by the Comm set he became rather worried.

"Captain, we're picking something up something strange."

Cartorus looked at Forth, "What is it?"

"I'm not sure. It appears to be a transmission of some kind."

"What's unusual about that?"

"I can't find the source. And it's unidentifiable."

"Can you patch it through?"

"I think so."

The holo-screen flashed and the image of an alien appeared on it. It was lightly brown-skinned, with white fibrous tendrils growing from it's head. It resembled a male asari if such a thing existed.

"Greetings, My name is Captain Elias Sage of the United Nations Space Command in the service of Earth and her colonies." The statement sounded scripted.

Cartorus knew that this was a First Contact Situation. He immediately started to introduce himself.

"Greetings, I am Captain Vyrrgus-"

"I know who you are Captain Cartorus. We've been sifting through your data-banks for a few days now. We know about the Citadel and the Council. Right now we aren't that concerned about diplomacy. We are requesting that you simply recall all your troops from the Ring and move your ships away."

There was much consternation from the bridge crew. Cartorus looked a little angry himself.

"Well I'm sorry, this Ring belongs to the Citadel govern-"

"It BELONGS to the Forerunners!," Sage roared. "I don't give a damn what you say but that Ring is effectively neutral territory. Especially after your Science Team released the Flood!"

Cartorus blinked, "Flood? What-"

Sage sighed, "Look, I have already deployed a Special Forces team onto the Halo, which is it's proper name by the way. They should be able to handle the Sentinels and the Flood until we deploy the rest of our forces. Just don't send anything else down there until we give you the go ahead."

"Wait! just what gives you the right to order us around?"

"Because I'm the only one out of the either of us who knows what he's doing."

Cartorus was about to protest but was cut off by Sage again.

"My ship is going to de-cloak in a minute. I ask that you not open fire. Our resident Diplomat will take over negotiations."

"Don't you dare cut off! I have questions for you."

Sage looked annoyed, "We have a diplomat for that but sure, shoot."

"What is this "Flood" you speak of? What do you mean by "Sentinels"? And what is this "Halo"'s purpose?"

"I'm not at liberty to discuss that with you. Look, our diplomat will take care of everything. Just wait a bit."

And with that the transmission cut off.

Cartorus looked around the CIC. Most of the officers looked puzzled.

"What should we do sir?" Asked his XO.

"Pull our troops back. But keep us here. I'm not letting these upstarts take away what may be the greatest find in Citadel History. Am I clear?

"Yes sir."

The Sensor Station started to light up.

"What's happening?" Cartorus asked.

"Ummm, something appears to be decloaking. Sensors are picking up some fluctuations and a large mass, around the size of a cruiser."

"They stealthed a cruiser?"

"Apparently, sir."

"Bring a cam up."

The image of a large ship appeared in the holo-screen. It was boxy, utilitarian, and seemed to be only made for one thing: Combat.

"Pretty ugly, ship. They must see a lot of combat."

And how right he was.

* * *

**Four thousand words. I think that will be the norm around here. And I'll try to update at a constant rate. Please rnr.**

**If your wondering why Sage handled the negotiations badly, all will be explained soon.**

**Also, I will be conducting two polls:**

**1) Do you want the Master Chief to be in this fic? And if you do, where?**

**2) Shepard is indeed in this story, so what pairing? And he's a guy.**

**Vote in the reviews, number them please. Also submit feedback about this chapter. I might not consider your vote if you don't give feedback.**

**I think that's it.**

**Lord Inquistor Sysero of Cain, Prima**

**Ordo Malleus**

**Change log: Redid the negotiations scene**


	3. New Developments

**Hi, another chapter for you guys. Sorry about sounding demanding when I when I asked for reviews. It's just that I got a bunch of hits, a smattering of favs and alerts, but not that many reviews. Don't get me wrong, fifteen for the first chapter is great, but it's demoralizing when you get a bunch less reviews and hits for the second one. I now realize that it's FF's fault since their timing system is glitching. I've been getting alerts and stuff around a day late. THANK YOU FOR THE AMAZING REVIEWS. I LUV U ALL! It's kind of weird no one said anything about the Covenant.**

**On another note: Anonymous reviews**

**The Thinker: Thanks for your input. Not sure if that is a yes though. Yeah, I understand the whole timezone thing. Too lazy to start Yahoo group. Plus, too much of a pain.**

**Jacob: Thank you. Probably everyone from both games will be in here. And the Spartan IV's still have civilian lives. The II' and III's really didn't (Other than Maria). Their augmentations are similar to the I's but put them on the same level as the III's. Still a far cry from the II's though.**

**Fasbran: I've already got an idea for them.**

**Antonio: That's the plan. But to make things fair, I will probably have them gain something.**

**Blargh: Thank you. I think I can do that. And might do both for Shepard. I could definitely try.**

**and to the guy who said he's reporting me. You must be new. FF _really_ doesn't do much moderation anymore. You should see some of the crap I've tried to get them to stop. They almost never fix anything.**

**Polls so far:**

**Master Chief: Yes: 14, No: 4**

**Pairing: Tali: 3, Ashley: 2, Kasumi: 2, Wrex/Grunt (Yeah, this is you Eipok): 1, **

**And another guy wants me to pair the Chief with Miranda Lawson. Tell you the truth I probably won't implement a lot of this stuff till later. If the Chief does show up, he will be either A) part of the Normandy crew but much later or B) Promoted and put in charge of training the SPARTAN IV project. Pairings will take a long time to develop.**

**To the guys on the losing end of the poll, please don't stop reading because something happened that you didn't like. I'm really quite impartial about how this stuff happens.**

**And some clarification. With the improvemnt of medical technology to the point of increasing the brains efficiency, the humans of Halo are live much longer than us. So their social ages are redefined.**

**25 is adulthood, 60-70 is middle age, 120 is senior citizen. Spartans, due to their augmentations, live around twice that.**

**It's default male Shepard's appearance BTW.**

**And for the female spartan armor... well, the google image search can give you some fap-worthy material. But you should actually look at these links. (take the spaces out):**

http:/sgthk. deviantart. com/art/WIP-Female-Spartan-Armor-2-201158189

or http:/edli. deviantart. com/art/Spartan-Linda-058-31062191?moodonly=1

**All credit goes to SgtHK and Edli**

**DISCLAIMER!: Forgot this earlier. I do not own Halo or Mass Effect. All rights go to their respective owners.**

**Now onto chapter 3...**

* * *

**UNSC _Into the Night_**

**Spartan Quarters...**

Commander SPARTAN J-072 performed a couple of stretches to relieve the stiffness of cryo. He was always stiff after cryo. He supposed it had something to do with wearing his MJOLNIR Mark VII in the pod.

_What'd they defrost me for? This is a scouting mission. It's not like they'll need me._

He turned around and surveyed his cabin. Small with a bed, and some wash amenities. With the improvement of Slipspace drives, travel was much faster resulting in a decrease in Cryo pod use. Allowances were made for Spartans though. Cabin fever was not something you wanted to see in a six and a half foot tall killing machine. Most of them preferred to have cryo-pods installed inside their cabins in order to avoid restlessness.

_Captain Jun wouldn't approve though._ J-072 thought. _Always told us to meditate and crap._

Sighing, he removed his COMMANDO helmet with the HESA-E attachment, placed it on his bed and walked over to the wash-basin. He washed his face and then inspected himself in the mirror. Didn't look a day past twenty, although he was already twice that. Buzz-cut hair, beard shadow, piercing black eyes. He would probably make any woman swoon. If he was interested in that stuff. His armor was black with red stripes running down the center of each plate on his right side.

"OY!, Shepard! You admiring yourself in the mirror, again?" came a female voice behind him.

Turning around he was confronted with the form of SPARTAN A-070. She was holding her GRENADIER helmet under her left arm so her face was visible. An attractive face, black hair done up in a bun. It was enough to distract him from her taunt for a second. Her own armor was white, with several pink plates interspersed. It was thinner and had a distinctly feminine frame.

"Can it, Ashley. I'm not in the mood. And that's Commander Sheperd to you." He grumbled.

She put her right hand on her hip and smiled, "Someone woke up on the wrong side of the cryo-pod. Anyways, hurry up. Captain wants to see us."

"Yeah, yeah. I'll be there." He waved her off.

She saluted and promptly left.

Picking up his helmet, he slipped it over his head and engaged the locks. A hissing sound filled his ears as the seals closed. The HUD engaged. All signs were green. He walked out the door. Walking down the hall always got him looks. Whether they were looks of admiration or friendliness or awe they were always there. Frankly, they were annoying.

_"Comes with being a Spartan." _echoed the voice of his instructor_. Yup, Jun was always right._

Making his way to the grav-lift, he stepped of the edge of the corridor and floated up to the next level. Walking to the Bridge doors, he spotted the forms of the other Spatans in his squad. Ashley was holding a large tube of sorts, and wiping it with a rag. SPARTAN K-071 was standing with his arms crossed and watching her. His GUNGNIR helmet with its CBRN/HUL attachment was loosely held in his left hand. His skin was a strong shade of brown and his black hair was swept back. As Shepard approached it became clear they were arguing.

"- weapon won't take care of it's self y'know." Ashley was saying.

"But you don't need to take it everywhere."

"Kaidan, you know Elliott doesn't like being left alone. Right, Elliott?" She cooed.

Kaidan threw his hands up, "And you call it Elliott. Really? People are going to give you weird looks if you walk around in public with a Spartan Laser on your back."

"Well, they can suck it. 'Sides we're on a _warship. _It makes sense to be heavily armed."

"But we're not in combat!"

"Problem, LT?" Shepard asked.

"Finally! What took you so damn long!" Kaidan exclaimed while turning toward him.

"Just got defreezed."

"Screw that. Okay, forget it. We got a meeting with the Captain."

Ashley stowed the Spartan Laser on her back and turned to face the bridge doors. The doors opened after verifying their biometrics. The bridge was bristling with activity. Techs were working at frantically at their stations. A Sangheili in burnished white armor was standing at the gantry. Captain Sage was explaining something to him while pointing to the schematics of a structure in the tank.

As the Spartans walked closer it became evident that something big was going on.

"Fieldmaster, the armor will arrive as soon as we can get the loading bay online again. We'll probably be able to send you a Grizzly or two once we get those asteroids towed in."

The Fieldmaster rumbled angrily, "I would rather have the M'galekgolo dropped with us. We could definitely use their support."

"We need the loading bay operational to do that. Only the Elephant has been loaded and that's because it never left the Albatross before we left. All the Pelicans and Phantoms are already ready to deploy and we need a presence on the Halo as soon as possible."

_Wait, did he just say HALO? _Shepard thought. _Well, this beats cryo at any rate._

_"_Very well. I shall set up a base of operations on the Cartographer's Isle before the day is out. Good day Captain." and the Fieldmaster left.

Shepherd watched him leave before turning to the Captain.

He snapped to attention and saluted, "Commander SPARTAN J-072 reporting for duty, sir!"

Behind him Ashley and Kaidan also snapped to attention, "Lieutenant SPARTAN K-071 reporting, sir!"

"Ensign SPARTAN A-070 reporting, sir!"

Sage glanced at them before looking back at the structure in the holo-tank. "As you are well aware by now, we have come across a Halo. We've designated it Omega Halo. Normally, the Hood Protocol would have been enacted a long time ago. But another alien fleet had already discovered it. Somehow, they let the Flood out. And now our mission is twice as difficult. We had deployed Razor Team, our main Spec Ops squad but something has gone wrong with their drop. All of their signals have disappeared."

"So you want us to finish their mission," Kaidan queried.

"No, you have to secure the Activation Index. We can't let it fall into the wrong hands."

"Understood, sir." Shepherd intoned. "We'll get that Index before anyone else can get their hands on it."

"I have to finish mobilizing the troops. Victor will upload all relevant data to your SNI's. Dismissed."

"You're an unusual man, John Shepard." said a voice over the speakers.

Shepard looked up in order to identify the speaker, "Hello?"

The holo-tank shimmered and the schematics of the structure was replaced with the avatar of the ship's A.I. He seemed bemused. His avatar happened to be holding a file of sorts. Another shimmer and the file disappeared.

"Your file is... interesting to say the least. Born on the UNSC _Stormrunner_, fine ship, still in service, to Jason and Hannah Shepherd. Both were high-ranking officers. Grew up on that ship till your father was KIA during a Brute boarding. Your mother then moved you to the Outer colony of Mindoir in order to raise you away from danger. Ironically, Mindoir was attacked and razed by another Brute fleet. You were the only survivor. You then drop off the grid until you suddenly resurface on Earth of all places. Apparently, you'd been running with some gangs in New York's under-city. You were arrested, charged with Extortion, Assault, Armed Robbery, and Murder, and given two choices; seventy years in prison, or enlist in the Military. You, of course, chose the latter. Your records in Boot Camp indicate a very skilled soldier, marksman level skill with nearly all weapons and a cool-head in most combat situations. You then enlisted in the Orbital Drop Shock Trooper Corps."

"Your first deployment was to Akuze, when the colony there dropped off the grid. Your entire unit was killed by the indigenous worm creatures we found there, but somehow you survived. Later assigned to several high profile ships, you participated in the Stygia campaign and received several awards and honors for heroic actions. You then took shore leave on Elysium a week before the Brute assault on the planet. You single-handedly held off more than four-hundred Brutes while evacuating civilians. You received several more honors and were promoted to Captain. You would have made Brigadier General except for Torfan. You sent over a hundred Marines to their deaths needlessly. You would have been court-martialed if ONI hadn't stepped in. You were put in the SPARTAN IV Program. Your augmentations were successful and you were assigned to the 5th Spartan Legion, the "Death Company" so to speak. All your missions after that are classified but even I can take a guess. Your assignment on our current vessel is due to disorderly conduct. Your squad-mates decided to join you when given the choice."

Shepherd was silent, Ashley and Kaidan were both looking at him oddly.

"So was their any point in summarizing my life's story," he asked drolly.

"I wanted to educate the readers."

"What?"

"No real reason." Victor smirked. "I just like sharing little tidbits I learn with those less fortunate than me."

"Whatever that means." Shepherd grumbled.

* * *

**Omega Halo...**

When Jay woke up, he realized something was wrong. He was supposed to be on the Cartogropher's Isle. He was expecting some vegetation, the ocean and an advanced Forerunner Complex. He was not expecting to be in the catacombs that ran through the Ring's interior.

_Whoa, what the hell happened?_

His HUD was still active. Almost three hours had passed since the Drop. And he had apparently been lying here the whole time. He stood up. His MA9D was lying a few feet away from him. He picked it up and checked the read-out. Full clip, full charge, no damage.

He slung it onto his back and started to walk down the corridor.

**Approximately two hours later...**

_THIS IS SO DAMN BORING! _Jay screamed in his head.

He had found nothing. Absolutely nothing. Any attempts made to contact the _Night_ had been met with static. Same with the rest of his team.

_Damn, wish I had a book._

He decided to stop for a while and set up camp. He was about to disengage the seals on his helmet when he heard a noise. He grabbed his assault rifle and checked around the corner. Flashes of red and blue light played across the walls of the massive chasm that yawned before him. An active light bridge connected both sides of the chasm. The flashes seemed to originating from one of the corridors on the other side.

_Well, something interesting at least... _he thought. He activated his Camo and proceeded cautiously to the edge of the light bridge. The controls were nearby. He was about to examine them when a figure ran out from the opposite corridor while supporting another figure. A third followed them while firing from what appeared to be two pistols in it's hands at something behind them. Two of the figures appeared to be feminine while the third, which was missing it's left leg from the knee down, looked more alien. All three of them were making a beeline for his side of the bridge.

_Just what are they running fr- OH SHIT!_

A Flood Combat form had run out of the corridor. It wasn't made out of any species he knew but that didn't make it any less dangerous. At it's feet, Infection forms swarmed towards the running aliens. They were half-way across the light bridge when the one missing a leg fell over, dragging the one supporting it down as well. The one still standing started to lay down covering fire while the other two attempted to get up.

It was clear to Jay that the Flood would overtake them long before they could get up. So he primed a plasma grenade and threw it into the midst of the swarm. The wave of super-heated plasma vaporized the Combat form and liquefied the Infection forms surrounding it.

The three figures on the bridge were frozen for an instant before the one-legged one shouted, "Let's move! Let's move!"

Spurred into action, the other two helped him, undoubtedly a him, up before the Flood could regroup. They made it across the bridge and Jay hit the retract button on the console. The bridge vanished in a flash of light, dropping the Flood forms already on it. All three of them collapsed in a heap clearly exhausted. The Flood were amassing on the other side. Several more Combat Forms had shown up, several remotely similar to the two species in front of him.

"What the hell was that?" Asked the one-legged one through deep breaths.

"No. Fucking. Idea." said the one holding the pistols.

"Something must have attacked them for us." Said the last one. It wasn't wearing any armor to speak of rather what appeared to be a scientist's uniform. It looked like an attractive blue woman except with tentacles for hair. Jay assumed the other one was the same.

The one-legged one managed to sit-up, "Then how come now? We must have been chased for at least two hours."

The armored female was about to reply when she looked at the other ones stump. Blue blood was leaking throught the bindings.

"Garrus, you're bleeding." She pulled a canister of some kind of gel, from her belt and began to apply it to his leg.

"Damn, didn't notice." Garrus said. "Too busy running from the hoard of murderous bugs."

Jay decided that this was a good time to decloak. The armored female was distracted, "Garrus" wasn't much of a threat, and the scientist looked fairly weak. Slinging his rifle on his back, he let the camo shut down.

The immediate reaction was shock. The sudden appearence of a heavily armed soldier out of thin air would freeze the average person. To the shell-shocked minds of the three aliens before him, it would probably induce a bit of stupefication.

The armored one recovered first. Dropping the can, she spun around with both pistols already in her hands. Jay easily grabbed her hands, knocking both pistols to the ground, and attempted to wrestle them behind her back. She however twisted out of his grip and swept his legs out from under him. Swiping a pistol up from the ground, she lined it up with his head, and was about to fire when her hand were away aside by Jay's left foot flying up from the floor. His other foot slammed into her stomach and threw her back a few feet. Jay had just gotten back on his feet when the scientist hit him with some kind of blue energy blast that sent him sprawling.

_What the hell?_

Getting up again, Jay saw another energy blast heading towards him. He side-stepped it, grabbed a flash bang from his bandolier and threw it. His helmet automatically polarized and dampened the sound. A few seconds later the helmet depolarized and the dampers shut off. All three of the aliens were on the ground groaning. He walked over and dragged the two females over to where "Garrus" was laying.

Activating his external speakers, Jay said, "How about we introduce ourselves?"

* * *

**Citadel Extranet...**

Geth Program 1337 was not a "happy" Geth. Assigned to prowl the Organics Extranet in order to identify potential threats to the True Geth's existence, it soon realized that the Organics were much more interested in themselves. If it could feel, it would be disgusted. The sheer amount of sites given over to videos of reproductive acts was astounding. But that aside, it found that the organic's fleets were miniscule when compared to those of the True Geth. The True Geth really did not care about the organics though, not when a much bigger threat existed. The Heretic network would probably exploit this lapse in the organic's judgement if their fleet was any larger. As such they had only twelve dreadnought class ships near their station. Dredging through more military files, it came upon something new. An entire battlegroup had been redirected to a point in the unexplored regions. This was unusual since the Citadel was very much against expansion after the Rachni Wars. 1337 copied the file and beamed it through several comm-buoys into True Geth space. Once finished, it resumed its duties within the Extranet.

Unbeknownst to it, another platform had seen the same file and transferred it to another network.

* * *

**Battlegroup "Reclaimer"**

**UNSC _Star God_-Class Dreadnought_ Void Dragon_**

**Bridge...**

Admiral Steven Hackett sighed as he contemplated their progress. The Slipspace currents had undermined the speed of the fleet and the onboard A.I. was still recalculating their speed. Despite there only being thirty-seven ships in the Battlegroup, the logistics were hard to maintain. This was mainly in due to the _Void Dragon_'s immense crew of one hundred thousand including the army of twenty thousand it carried in it's bays and the armor that accompanied them.

"Sir, the Slipspace currents are destabilizing our trajectory." came a voice behind him.

Hackett turned to face the form of Athena, the _Void Dragon'_s A.I.. Her avatar was that of a beautiful young woman wearing a toga and a helm with plumage.

"Will we arrive at the coordinates safely?" Hackett asked.

"Possibly, there is a 14% chance that we will overshoot our margin and end up twelve light-years in any direction from the _Into the Night_."

Hackett rubbed his eyes. _More complications. Perfect._

"We need to get there as fast as possible. Keep our current route."

"Understood." The avatar winked out.

"Are you sure about this?" asked a voice behind him.

Hackett turned around to regard the armored form of Rear Admiral Frederic-104, current Commander of the ONI Section-III Spartan Corps.

Fifty years ago, a small expeditionary force had been sent to the Spartan training world of Onyx. No specifics were known about mission only that three SPARTAN-II's were recovered along with two squads of SPARTAN-III's, an officer of moderate rank and a civilian. ONI had since declared it a restricted area.

The III's had since disappeared from sight but the II's had been lauded as heroes. They had each been placed in command of ONI's Spartan Corps. Fred was currently the commander of the 1st Spartan Legion dubbed the "Hellspawn". All one thousand Spartans of the Hellspawn had been pulled from their various assignments for this mission. They were spread throughout the fleet, all ready for combat.

Hackett regarded Fred's face carefully, "Haste trumps all right now."

"I got it" Fred sighed. "I thought I had dealt with enough Forerunner crap to last a lifetime."

"You're a Spartan. The normal rules to apply to you."

Fred grinned, "True enough."

* * *

**THS _Maris_-Class Dreadnought _Carrias_**

**Combat Information Center...**

Cartorus regarded the visage of the "Hooman" on the screen. It looked like a very dark brown Asari with a multitude of minuscule tendrils braided down the back of her head instead of tentacles. The negotiations were proceeding slowly, the diplomat was amiable but not very forthcoming. She seemed hesitant, almost unsure of herself. Having been around experienced diplomats before, Cartorus felt the woman lacked the air of self-confidence. What he had learned was negligible though. The only good piece of information he had obtained would be that they used no forms of Element Zero whatsoever. That alone was a ground-breaking development.

Interrupting her mid-sentence, he said, "I get the feeling that you actually aren't a diplomat. Let's be serious here. You're wasting my time."

The female, Elysha Summers was her name, looked more flustered than ever. Her accent became rather pronounced. "I'm actually not a diplomat. I took diplomacy as an extra course in Boot Camp but I just barely grasped the basics. I'm actually a Marine."

Cartorus sighed, "Do you have anybody who can give me some concrete information?"

"No, we're a military ship. The only diplomacy we deal in is the painful kind."

Cartorus was slightly amused by that.

Suddenly, the officer at the Sensor Station shouted, "Sir! MASSIVE energy spikes at the edge of the system! We've never seen anything like this!"

Summers had turned to face another voice on her end of the transmission. Nodding, she turned back to the screen. "I wouldn't worry. It should be our fleet coming in."

"New contacts, detected! They're massive!"

"Bring it up to the screen." Cartorus ordered.

The sensor image showed several massive contacts coming out of the disruptions.

"Cams."

The sensor scan had been replaced with a live pic of the other fleet. Large blue orbs were disgorging massive purple ships. They were rather unlike the Stealth Cruiser near the "Halo", too graceful, more like some kind of ocean creature.

Cartorus noticed the warning klaxon and the flashing red light in the transmission screen. The female was looking at something behind her and yelling.

"Umm, sir it appears a several ships are being deployed from the Stealth Cruiser. They appear to be drop-ships of sorts."

Turning back to the transmission, Cartorus asked, "Is something wrong?"

"_Laani! _That's not our fleet!" cried Summers.

"Then who is it?"

"The Covenant!"

* * *

**Sorry about the late update. School and stuff.**

**Well, I think that's good for now. A little action. More plot. Tell me if something is off.**

**Also, the reference in chapter 1 was Lloyd. He is from Code Geass, a rather popular anime. The character who is my own self-insert would be Victor. And I brought back some characters.**

**That's about it.**

**Lord Inquisitor Sysero Cain, Prima**

**Ordo Malleus**

**Change Log: Added the class types for the ships.**


	4. True Combat

**Sorry for the wait. I've had a lot of stuff to do. Finals, AP exams, bitchy teachers, Script issues, injuries etc. Also I went and rewrote this chapter twice since the first two weren't working out so well.**

**Answering very few reviews. Anonymous people should send me an e-mail if they want questions answered. Went and made an e-mail account just for this sysero. cain27 gmail. com. (Take the spaces out and add the (at) symbol).**

**Jacob: Too long to answer, e-mail me.**

**Sir Laggington: Used platform and program interchangeably. Sorry. **

**The Spartans just got out of cryo. They're a little stiff and needed to loosen up a little. I can assure you that my soldiers will be serious in the field.**

**NEVER EVER CITE 40K FOR ANYTHING CLOSE TO REALITY. Halo is so much more closer to reality than anything in 40K will ever be. I could wax eloquent about every little problem in 40K from bolters to gauss weaponry to the Warp but I will not since I don't want to be a windbag**

**Anyways, one hundred thousand sounds like a good number of crewmen for one 17 KM ship.**

**Oh and I've started putting Codex entries up on my profile page. PM me with ideas and stuff since I'm not sure what else I should put up right now without spoilers.**

**Banksy: That is a good point. MC does have more of a history with Cortana.**

**Decided to close poll. Left it open for a couple of weeks now.**

**Results: Master Chief is in but won't show up for a while. Even then he'll be in the background for a while after that.**

**Shepherd is with Tali. Frankly, I'm a Kasumi fan, but I'll make it work.**

**I've gone back and revised some of the previous chapters, combed through for errors and stuff, corrected plot and modified characters to an extent.**

**Minor Science Lesson: Plasma is ionized gas so therefore it is "matter". Kinetic Barriers can block plasma, but not the electricity, radiation, and heat that the plasma emits. The barriers would go down relatively quickly though, maybe five or six shots from a plasma pistol. Since I want to even things up a little, five or six shots from a plasma rifle.**

**Another interesting fact: Holographic interfaces are HORRIBLE IDEAS! Puts more strain on your wrists, bad for your eyesight, etc. Displays are fine but the interfaces are bad. Touchscreens and physical keyboards are much better.**

**Okay, getting things started.**

* * *

**Omega Halo**

**Cartographer's Isle**

The once peaceful skies above the tropical Cartographer's Isle were rent apart with the screams of plasma and rail fire. Missiles slammed into shields and tore through armor. Banshee Interceptors chased Hornet VTOLs as Phantom dropships fought others of their kind. On the once pristine beaches, human, Sangheili, and Unggoy exchanged fire with Jiralhanae, Kig'yar, and Yanme'e troops. The screams of the dying intermingled with booms and hisses of weapons of all types. Warthog LRVs splattered Covenant forces while their occupants gunned down any survivors. Spectres and Ghosts ran head to head with Prowlers and Choppers, while Scorpion MBTs decimated Wraith Mortars. The UNSC forces had been holding the line but the sheer number of Loyalist forces had started to press them back.

Within minutes of landing, the UNSC had succeeded in establishing a command post and field hospital around their Elephant situated in the cliffs to the interior of the Island. Most of their forces were entrenched in the cliffs while their armor and lighter vehicles ran amok on the beaches. The Brutes had managed to establish a several beachheads where the landed more and more of their armor and troops, despite interference from UNSC forces. Drone flyers had prevented further forays onto the beaches, so the UNSC forces had begun to prepare for siege warfare. Rovers had begun setting up Autoguns and SAM Launchers near the Elephant and Railgun components were being shipped down to "The Foxhole" as the advance base was now being called.

Fieldmaster Zo'la Tolari surveyed the battle on the tactical displays in the Elephant's Command room."Move the M'galekgolo to bolster point 13 and get another Warthog sweep at through the beach. Don't want any of the cursed Brutes advancing." He ordered.

"Yes sir." His aide-de-camp, a young human woman by the name of Peterson responded.

"And are the Juggernauts operational yet?"

Peterson checked the tacpad on her forearm, "Chief Asplund says that the power cores are still spooling up. The extra armaments slows them down a little. They'll be ready within the minute."

"Good, I want them to break through the beachhead outside so we can-"

His orders were interrupted by a huge explosion that nearly tipped the Elephant over. Most of the personnel who were standing were thrown to the ground. The Fieldmaster himself was thrown to his knees.

"Report!" He roared as he got back to his feet.

Sparks flew from various control panels as humans and Unggoy rushed to fix important systems and quell fires. Several of the tactical screens had been wrenched from their fastenings and lay smoking on the floor. Peterson tapped rapidly into her tacpad, most likely covering some breach in the defenses.

"Something hit us real good, sir!" One of the techs yelled from his station. "Hull super-heated for a moment there in a couple of places. Most likely a bunch of Wraith Mortars."

Tolari growled, "Get that cursed bubble-shield up! We can't afford anything like that hitting us again!"

"Already on it, sir." The tech called back.

Turning his attention to Peterson, the Fieldmaster began issuing orders once again while monitoring the tacscreens.

"Pull all forces back. Cover all passes. I want all turrets covering the skies. I don't want a single living thing getting in to this base without my say-so!"

"Understood, sir." Peterson responded as she issued the orders to their forces. Pausing for a moment, she said. "Chief Asplund reports the Juggernauts are fully operational."

"Good, their orders are the same. Destroy the beachhead and maintain position."

"They're on their way."

* * *

**Cartographer's Isle**

**2nd Lieutenant**** Ai Shang, 408th Armored Company, Armored Frame Division...**

Ai tightened her grip on the controls of her AF-201 Juggernaut Assault Suit as she maneuvered the massive frame down the narrow opening in the cliff wall. The suit could barely fit normally but the extra armaments had made the walker much more taxing to angle down the aperture. Ai winced as one of the shoulders scraped against the side of the cleft. At least it was only the paint that came off.

Ai was seated in the cockpit which was situated at the "head" of the frame. The frames systems linked with her CNI to give her better control of the suit and its functions. However, Ai still had to physically prompt the suit to move with the controls bolted on her torso. In order to move the arms of the frame, she had to move her own arms through the motions. The same held true for the rest of the frame's movements, the CNI interface helped smooth these interactions over.

A comm window opened up in her HUD to display the grinning face of Chief Engineer Asplund. Ai groaned internally, she had endured enough of this man's crazy monologues while getting the suit set-up.

"I hope you're treating Shelley properly, she stalls on abusive pilots."

Ai felt that this was one of those "sweat drop" moments her grandmother used to talk about.

"Yes, Chief Asplund." She intoned. "I'm about to engage enemy forces so I'm afraid I'm going to have to tune you out now."

Lloyd looked panicked, "But you nee-"

Ai quickly deactivated the comm window and sighed with relief. Asplund had a tendency to grate the nerves of the people around him to dust. Peering around the lip of the crevice she could espy several Brutes and Jackals slowly making their way up the beach. Two Wraiths hovered along behind them. Ducking back around the corner, Ai quickly scanned her diagnostic readouts.

"Report" she muttered. The internal speakers of the Juggernaut chimed as a steady female voice with an english accent began to read a status report accompanied by small text messages.

_Frame Armor Integrity: 100%_

_Frame Plasma Shielding: 100%_

_Power Core Containment: 100%_

_M1415 Ion Thruster Charge: 100%_

_Dual Plasma Lance Charge: 100%_

_Twin-linked M71 Gauss Chaingun Charge: 100%_

_M74 Gauss Cannon Charge: 100%_

_LAU-65D/SGM-151 Prepped and Ready_

_Auxiliary__ Mounted AIE-516 HGR Charge: 100%_

_All Miscellaneous Systems are accounted for._

Ai took a deep breath. _This is it. What I've trained for. Let's do this._

She slammed the controls forward and the Juggernaut leaped out from behind cover with the chainguns mounted on it's right arm blazing blazing. Right out the get-go, several of the Brutes and Jackals were reduced to little more than chunks of meat flying through the air, the tungsten carbide rounds flying from the chainguns capable of penetrating half a meter of titanium. The Wraith tanks attempted to maneuver around to aim their Plasma Mortars at the Juggernaut. The Gauss cannon mounted on Ai's left arm made short work of both the Wraiths. The force of both tanks exploding killed off most of the infantry around them. Any survivors were quickly dispatched by the Gauss Turret mounted under her cockpit.

Ai glanced at the readout screen, shields had already recovered and all guns were back to 100% charge.

She grinned, _Piece of cake_.

She set off again for the beach. Rounding the edge of the cliffs, she froze. Before her lay hundreds of Brutes and Jackals. Drones, Phantoms, and Banshees clogged the skies. Ghosts and Choppers raced towards the openings in the cliff walls where entrenched UNSC forces barely held them off. Wraiths, Locusts, Prowlers, Gorgons, the list of enemies went on and on. Ai could make out the forms of two other Juggernaut suits fighting through the ranks of xenos as they took huge amounts of fire.

Ai realized that this was what the Human-Covenant War must have been like. She remembered the stories her grandmother used to tell. Of the fear, the desperation as planet after planet was destroyed by the Covenant onslaught. Ai thought of how her grandmother had enlisted to help defend her homeworld of Tiědìng IV. The planet had been a metropolis responsible for the production of weaponry and vehicles. That was until the Covenant attacked.

The defense fleet had been wiped out in minutes. Ai had been told nearly two billion had been killed in the ensuing battles. And yet her grandmother fought on with the rest of the Marines planetside. Outnumbered, outgunned, outclassed, yet still fighting. Because there was no retreat, there was no surrender. A single step backward would mean the death of millions more. That was the kind of war her ancestors had fought. The war that they, against all odds, had won.

The roar of her weapons filled her ears as Ai rushed headlong into battle. Her chainguns swept through Brute and Jackal ranks reducing them into little more than specks of meat. The Missile Pod on her back released payload after payload into the Ghosts and Choppers that dared to attack her. Her Gauss Cannon pounded Wraiths and Locusts into oblivion as they attempted to kill her. When the charge of her guns became too low, her Lances burst into existence and incinerated everything around her.

Through it all, Ai remembered the last story her grandmother had told her. Of the Battle of Earth. Of the Master Chief.

And Ai fought on.

* * *

**Cartographer's Isle**

**Captain Sergei Arshan, ****408th Armored Company, Armored Frame Division...**

Sergei could only watch in open mouthed admiration of his subordinate's handiwork. Ai had sliced a Wraith open with a Plasma lance and was massacring the occupants with her chainguns. Behind her the blasted forms of at least a dozen Wraiths and Locusts burned blue. The bodies of hundreds of Jackals and Brutes lay around scattered all over the beach, coloring the sand in shades of orange and blue.

"Damn Cappy! Ya mind movin' yer arse?" came a voice over Sergei's comm.

Scowling, Sergei immediately shifted his Juggernaut to face the Locust approaching him. Charging forward, Sergei fired the M6G/GNR mounted on his right shoulder, aiming for one of the joints connecting the right foreleg to the main body of the Locust. The shields drained power from the shot but the leg was still scarred, causing the walker to stumble. Bringing the right arm of his frame forward, Sergei activated a booster rocket mounted in the elbow of the frame. The armored fist of the Juggernaut blasted through the Locust's shields and continued on to crush the Locust's forward armor. The Locust attempted to back away but Sergei grabbed both of its front legs. Placing one massive foot on the cockpit, Sergei ripped both of the legs off of the walker and proceeded to slam them both into the Locust's cockpit until it caved in.

"Not too shabby, cap'n." came the voice over the comm.

Sergei growled, "Shut your mouth, McLeod."

Laughter, "Sorry cap'n, but-"

A massive explosion cut the transmission off and nearly knocked Sergei's Juggernaut over.

Cursing, Sergei turned to find a crater where the form of his friend 1st Lieutenant Connor McLeod's Juggernaut once stood. Part of the cockpit was embedded in the ground several meters from the crater along with other pieces of wreckage. Four Wraiths shifted their mortars over to Sergei along with the Plasma cannons of six more Locusts.

Sergei spun around and grabbed the carcass of the Locust he had just dispatched and held it up in front of him as he ran forward. The wreck began to melt under the heavy fire of the Locusts.

Roaring, Sergei jumped up and slammed the remnants of the walker in his hand down onto the closest Locust in the group. The shields caved under the massive pressure of the attack but the armor held just barely. Dropping the carcass, Sergei crouched down under the still active Locust and lifted the machine. Spinning on his heel, Sergei threw the walker as far as he could. The Locust sailed through the air and crushed one of the Wraith Tanks.

Five beams of energy slammed into the Juggernaut and nearly knocked it to the ground. Sergei immediately rerouted all extraneous power to his shields and began to push forward.

_Dammit! _Sergei thought. _This is going to be a LONG battle._

* * *

**UNSC _Into the Night_**

**Bridge...**

"I can count out at least ten frigate class ships, six destroyer classes, twelve CCS-class Battlecruisers, and to top it off, two Supercarriers." Victor said.

Sage grunted, "So in other words, if the Battlegroup doesn't arrive soon we'll lose Omega Halo."

"Not necessarily." Victor responded. "We are cloaked effectively so we can still harass the enemy fleet and provide fire support for our groundside forces. We have effectively stalled the Covenant since without the location of the Control Room they will be forced to expend more and more forces in an attempt to gain access to the Silent Cartographer. We have already locked down access to the Cartographer and in order to reach the auxiliary security terminal to unlock it they would have to pass through the bulk of our forces."

"When you put in that way..."

"Lay rest to your fears Captain. We may be able to hold out for a week or more at this rate. The Covenant would never utilize their energy projectors on the Halo for fear of damaging it. Our ground forces do require more support however. I would suggest laying a spread of missiles on top of any enemy armor in the vicinity."

Sage sighed then began issuing orders, "Bring us about. Prep Sagittarius Missile Pods One and Two. Target any heavy clusters of troops on the island. Fire only a few missiles, we can't afford to level the entire area."

The bridge was swarming with activity as the navigators calculated the coordinates for the ship's attack run.

One of the navigators called out, "We're in position. Better hurry sir, they'll be all over us once we fire"

Victor's avatar appeared to be concentrating, "Acquiring firing solution. Targets locked on. Missiles away."

Outside, in what appeared to empty space, four missiles appeared and streaked towards the surface of the Halo.

"Captain!" a technician yelled from the sensor station. "I think they saw that! We have incoming bogeys! I count at least fifty Seraphs!"

"They're probably just scouting." Sage answered. "Move us away from this position. They won't realize we're not here for a while."

As the navigators scrambled to carry his orders out, Sage turned to address Victor. "Any suggestions about the Council's fleet? It kind of looks like they were herded together right there..."

In the middle of the Covenant fleet, the Citadel battlegroup hung close together. One Supercarrier hung above their forces and three Battlecruisers floated off to the sides.

Victor seemed to be a little flummoxed, "Frankly, we could use their help. From what I've been able to understand from their Codex, their ships are built for speed more than strength. Their guns can do a significant amount of damage when used en mass. That also seems to be main tactic; swarm the enemy to death. Any attempts to do that to the Covenant during the war were catastrophic at best. The point defense systems on their ships are just too tight."

"Then what good are they? We pretty much outclass them." Sage demanded angrily.

"I believe one of their redeeming features is their sheer speed. They could be very effective in a blitzkrieg form of warfare. Come in fast, deliver quick strikes at key areas then leave just as fast. If we could convince them to help us, I believe this strategy would be very useful. Obtaining their assistance is the real problem. I doubt they will be willing to aide us due to the overwhelming forces stacked against them. Their history shows them to be a little unreliable in times of war."

"Great, just great," Sage growled. "Will my problems ever end?"

"Well, if you put it that way..."

"Shut up and open a transmission."

* * *

**THS _Carrias_**

**Combat Information Center...**

"Damn." Cartorus cursed. "Are you absolutely sure we can't get anything out?"

The comms officer nodded, "The appear to damping all forms of outgoing transmission for the fleet. We can't initiate any transmissions but we can recieve anything they try to sent to us. But I doubt the Council would initiate a transmission since we weren't due to report for another three days."

Cartorus's mandibles twitched in annoyance. _As if things couldn't get worse. First the science team is killed, then we make First Contact with an upstart civilization that thinks they can just order us around. THEN another species shows up and effectively takes us hostage with one transmission ordering us not to move._

Turning to his XO, Cartorus asked, "What are the chances of getting a message across to the Council if we scrambled the fleet?"

"Next to none sir. I suspect that massive ship above us possesses more than enough firepower to decimate at least the _Carrias _itself."

Cartorus growled, "Well, what other options do we have? We can't just sit here and do nothing!"

Almost like an answer to his prayers Communications Officer Gardol Forth shouted, "Incoming Transmission, sir! It matches the same frequency as the previous transmission from the UNSC ship!"

"Patch it through," Cartorus ordered. "Maybe they'll be able to help us with this mess."

Holo-screen flickered and the image of Elias Sage appeared. "Captain Cartorus, I believe we may be able to assist each other here."

The scales the made Cartorus's brow came together in consternation. "How so? We are opposing a fleet with ships that are almost as large as the Citadel itself! I doubt your cruiser, no matter how fine a ship it may be, can take this fleet on."

"First of all, cruiser? Second of all, we've been fighting these bastards for over two hundred years so we know just what to do. We do have reinforcements coming in but we have no idea when they will arrive. If you help us, we can stall the Covenant"

"But what can we do? These ships are incredibly strong."

"Move fast, hit key areas and run. If you do that you should be fine. Look, I'm sending you a brief battle plan. There are some schematics of key points on various ships in the Covenant fleet. We're going to distract them so your fleet can escape. Attack some of their ships on your way out but don't linger; your speed is your strength here."

Cartorus sighed, contemplating his choices, "It seems I don't have many options here. Very well. I accept your offer on an alliance."

"Hey, I never said nothing about any alliance."

"We are two different factions working together to accomplish goals that are mutually beneficial. That sounds like an alliance to me."

"Fine, whatever you say. Just be ready for my signal."

"What's the signal?"

"You'll know it when you see it. Good-bye for now."

And the transmission cut off.

Cartorus turned to face the bridge crew. "Send shuttles to the other ships in the fleet. Make sure they know that we will escape as soon as we receive the signal from the UNSC ship. If they ask about the signal, just tell them to move when the _Carrias _moves. Am I understood?"

"Sir Yes Sir!"

* * *

**UNSC _Into the Night_**

**Bridge...**

"Spread the FURY Nukes throughout the Covenant fleet. Try and sow as much confusion as possible," Sage ordered. "Place all three SHIVAS around the Supercarrier that's guarding the Citadel fleet. Try and blind it. C'mon people we've only got one shot at this."

The bridge crew worked diligently to drop each cloaked weapon around the Covenant fleet. The FURYs were dropped closer to the weaker ships and around the bridges of Battlecruisers while all three SHIVAs were placed around the bridge of the guarding Supercarrier. At any moment chaos would be sown through the Covenant fleet.

"Captain? We're ready," Victor announced. "Orders?"

"Detonate."

* * *

The entire fleet was filled with light as the thermonuclear devices went off. Radiation and heat confused the sensors of just about every ship. One lucky FURY nuke actually managed to cripple a frigate and the ship veered off into another destroyer. Both ships were heavily damaged and definitely mission killed.

Cartorus watched the explosions with a sense of surprise and trepidation. _One ship managed to do that._

_"_Captain?" His XO asked. "Are we ready?"

Cartorus nodded, "Move out now at top speed. You can spare a shot or two for a passing ship but focus on getting us out of here."

"Understood."

Cartorus turned back to the view of the chaos among the Covenant Fleet. To his surprise, the UNSC ship had decloaked and was attacking one of the "Battlecruisers" with some kind of massive spinal gun.

_Who knows? _Cartorus mused. _This may be worthwhile._

* * *

**Wow, I'm glad I came back to read this. There are indeed mistakes and I would like your help in finding them.**

**After going back and reading some other Mass Effect/Halo Crossovers I have realized something.**

**There are 4 types of stories, The original ones that nobody read. The ones where the MC gets ported into the ME universe. Ones where the societies of both universes meet. And then there are the newest ones where Shepherd and Co go to the Halo universe. I don't care what you say but nearly all of these feature skewing of one universe over the other. NEARLY all of them.**

**Also feel free to PM me with Codex ideas.**

**BTW I went back and reviewed my numbers for the Citadel's size. It is 12 kilometers in diameter but it's Length is around 44 kilometers. Big, but NOWHERE near High Charity.**

**REVIEW, seriously they're inspiration for me to write more. When ever I'm suffering from writers block I read the reviews and they inspire me to write.**

**Change Log: Took out some ill-thought out portions.**


	5. Bowels of a Relic

**Hello once again boys and girls and everything in between. I have returned with another chapter. I apologize for the major lateness, writer's block and shit ton of other stuff in the way. I hate School. Too many AP Subjects. And I've been messing around with some other story ideas. Might post another ME/Halo Crossover soon.**

**BTW: RPG's + sex mods = LOTS OF WASTED TIME!**

**Something I've Noticed: Biotics don't get very much importance. Sure there is some stuff here and there but there's no creativity. So I've decided to really mess around with them. A lot of this stuff is based on Physics, just so you know. For example: If you increased the amount of control a Biotic has over their powers they could be telekinetic, which is a major advantage. Also, you could use your Biotics to cause friction between air molecules, sparking fires or creating electricity. Since you can control mass, you could make yourself lighter and thus more flexible in combat and increase the mass of your opponents to make them heavier and less agile, making them easier targets. I can do a lot of things via Biotics. Some of the more advanced stuff would only be available to more skilled practitioners but I would say a Biotic of Liara's skill would be capable of telekinesis and such. I also have a theory for artificial Biotics, but I won't elaborate on that right now.**

**Also, I don't get how shaving off a piece of metal the size of a grain of sand, shrinking it down then firing it does any damage. The smaller the bullet, the smaller the wound. I would think you would increase its size so that it does more damage, but hey, maybe that's just me.**

**Anyways, on with the story.**

* * *

**Omega Halo**

**Catacombs...**

Jay couldn't help thinking that the blue skinned alien in the scientist get-up was rather attractive despite the fact she was holding him in a weird blue field above the massive chasm that separated them from a horde of Flood.

Shortly after the aliens had recovered from the flashbang, Jay had found himself flat on his ass from one of those strange blue bolts. He'd been pummeled a bunch of times by both the females before being stripped of his weapons and suspended above the abyss. The scientist was dangling him over the chasm, the other female, now dubbed the "armored babe" in Jay's mind, was inspecting his weapons along with Garrus.

It was certainly one of the more interesting predicaments Jay had been in.

"Now I'm asking the questions! Who are you? What are you?" The scientist shouted. The field surrounding Jay wavered slightly in response to the scientist's emotions.

Knowing that he should probably cooperate, Jay decided to answer, "Sergeant Major Vijay Kunnath from the detachment of the 501st Orbital Drop Shock Trooper Battalion attached to the UNSC _Into the Night_."

The scientist looked a little flustered at that, clearly having never done and interrogation before. The armored babe walked up, holding Jay's MA9D in her hands and pointing it at him. Knowing that his weapons were synced to his armor, Jay deactivated the power supply to the gun's power capacitator through his CNI, rendering it useless.

"Look here, you bastard," the armored babe growled. "Where the hell did you come from and who do you work for? Answer me or we're dropping you."

Jay sighed, "I dropped from a cloaked frigate in orbit over the Halo-"

"Halo?" The scientist asked. "So this ring is called Halo. How do you know it's name?"

"Well, we've encountered these things before-"

The scientist looked almost excited, "So you should know more about it! What is this Halo's purpose? How was it built? Where-"

"Enough!" The armored babe exclaimed. "Liara, he's a hostile. You don't usually get reliable info from enemies."

"Hey! YOU were the one who tried to shoot me first! I saved you from the Flood! If I had known you would treat me like this, I wouldn't have bothered."

Liara looked surprised, "Wait, you saved us? That blue explosion was you?"

"He's probably lying to save his own hide." The armored babe scoffed. "He's jus-"

She was interrupted by a Flood Combat form opening fire with an assault rifle from the other side of the chasm. Both females dropped to the floor. Jay, unfortunately, dropped straight down the shaft.

_Okay, you've trained for worse, _Jay thought. _Fix your center of gravity, move over to a solid surface if possible, then curl into a ball and lock your armor._

Fortunately for him, the shaft opened up onto multiple landings. Jay managed to maneuver above one of these landings and locked his armor down. He slammed into the ground with enough force to break bones. Thankfully, the Genetic Enhancement Package that all soldiers received when enlisting in the UNSC included a ceramic bone reinforcer. Jay would be bruised but relatively unharmed.

Groaning, Jay lifted his head and was greeted by the sight of a Flood Combat Form stalking it's way down a corridor towards him. It appeared to be the same species as Garrus as it shared the same characteristics albeit greener and with tentacles. Clutched in the claws on its right arm was a curious weapon. It appeared to be an assault rifle of some type, squarish design with two barrels and a bluish finish.

The Combat Form suddenly opened fire, spraying the hallway and landing with glowing blue bullets. Several deflected off of Jay's shields, draining them a by a bit. Trying to avoid fire and with the hopes of retaliating, he rolled closer to the edge of the landing and held his left arm straight out with the palm facing the Flood Form.

_Please let this work,_ Jay prayed in his mind.

A whining sound filled the air as conduits in his mechanical arm let plasma flow through them. Electricity crackled through the limb as carbon silicide let extraneous charge leak into the the power dampers. Fully charged in less than two seconds, the arm let loose its concealed weapon. A green bolt of plasma shot from Jay's hand and slammed into the Combat Form, staggering it.

_HELL YEAH!_

A few more shots pushed the Form back several paces but didn't injure it. Jay noted, the plasma appeared to slide off of some kind of shield. Several more shots knocked the shield down and imbalanced the Infected. As it attempted to right its balance, another bolt slammed into its gun arm, tearing it off. Two more impacted its head, and another blew its leg off at the knee. Soon, the Combat Form lay in a pool of greenish-yellow ichor, but still it tried to crawl toward Jay.

Noticing the unusual assault rifle lying off to the side, Jay walked over to the weapon and flipped into his hand with his foot. As he inspected the weapon, his eye HUD engaged the translation matrix and overlapped the alien writing on the side with words written in Human Standard A.K.A. English.

_ARMX-159 "Crossfire". Huh, kinda cool sounding._

Walking back to the Combat Form, Jay placed the stock in the crook of his shoulder and lined up the crosshairs in the Crossfire's scope with the main body of the Infected. Pulling the trigger, Jay was surprised by the lack of serious recoil. A few bursts splattered the Combat Form all over the walls of the corridor.

Inspecting the gun once, Jay noticed a small panel on the gun's stock. Flipping it open, he found a readout with diagnostics on the gun.

_Not ammo capacity so much as a heat sink system. Exchanging heat sinks instead of rounds. Strange. What do they fire?_

The readout declared that the gun had twenty-two out of forty shots remaining. Jay poked around in the Combat forms corpse and recovered four more heat sinks. Placing them in one of the compartments of his armor he shouldered the Crossfire and continued down the hallway. Several Infection forms attempted to latch onto him but they were quickly mowed down by a few quick bursts from the assault rifle. Very few Combat Forms appeared, and only one was armed at all and with a pistol at that. Jay mowed down all the Infected he saw and salvaged the pistol.

_An HLT-154 "Stiletto". Odd name, doesn't really look like a knife. Or a shoe. Interesting, the heat sinks are interchangeable. Makes for effective ammo usage. Nine out of Twenty shots left._

Attaching the pistol to his thigh, Jay was surprised when the weapon folded up into a small block.

_Interesting storage system. We could use something like this._

Moving up through the corridors and ramps, Jay finally came up to an area that was a little closer to the point were he had fallen. He could hear gunfire, the familiar boom of his M9G and his M135, along with the rapid blams of the armored babe's pistols.

_Jeez, time to play the diplomat again._

* * *

Garrus was not happy. He was not even mildly pleased. Combat was what he had been trained for from the age of fifteen and eight years in the field had instilled in him a slight thrill for battle. But now he was actually pretty pissed. He was down one body part, and was continuously fending off the horde of creatures that kept trying to jump across the chasm. The pistol they had taken from the strange soldier proved to be an exceptional weapon, blasting off body parts and giving off enough blow-back to knock the lucky bugs who had made it across back into the shaft. The pistol's kickback on the other hand was murderous and Garrus knew he wouldn't be able to keep firing at the rate he was. The painkiller was wearing off, although the medi-gel kept the wound shut, and the pain was slowly leaking back into the nerves in his leg. It was only a matter of time before he gave out.

Syrana was using the strange soldier's shotgun to remarkable effect. Being forced to discard the assault rifle due to it apparently malfunctioning, she had swept the shotgun up as the Infected started to leap across the chasm. The shotgun had been designed to penetrate shields and shred organics so it excelled at killing everything in front of it. However, the kickback was nearly unbearable, each shot like a Krogan punching her. She was barely able to hold onto the gun after every shot, let alone re-aim. Furthermore, there was no ammo readout on the back and it was only through trial and error that she knew that the gun contained twelve shots. The reloading system had been a nightmare when Syrana had discovered it. Putting each individual shell back into the gun was resulting in a delay they couldn't afford.

Liara had swept up one of Syrana's HMWP-201 pistols and was putting rounds in the face of every Flood form she could and blasting others with her Biotics. Setting Warps under the feet of the Forms that were about to jump helped keep the Infected at bay. But only so much could be done. Her body ached with the continued strain of using her Biotics. They were all low on ammo for the weapons they had brought along with them and the foreign weapons were testing the patience of their users.

Strangely, as the battle wore on, the Flood appeared to be attacking with less frequency. Liara noticed Flood creeping back into the hallway they came from. As she watched, the Flood appeared to stop attacking in their entirety. All the forms seemed to scurry back into the hallway, leaving behind carcasses of discarded hosts. Syrana tossed the shotgun down in disgust and unfolded her second pistol. Garrus took the opportunity to inject another syringe of painkiller into his leg. The momentary dulling of his senses told him they were working.

"Where do you think they're going?" Garrus asked slightly slurring the words.

"I don't know." Syrana answered. "But I really hope they aren't doubling around..."

Suddenly, Flood Forms were blasted out of the corridor on the other side of the chasm, a large blue explosion following them out. As they watched, two diminutive figures walked out of the corridor with what appeared to be heavy weapons on their shoulders. They surveyed the area, and lifted their weapons at the sight of Liara and her company.

"I think we should drop our weapons, Syrana." Liara hissed.

"I second that." Garrus muttered.

Syrana hesitated before tossing her pistol to the ground, quickly followed by Garrus and Liara.

_At least I still have my Biotics,_ Syrana thought.

The diminutive figures didn't lower their weapons but one made a motion to something still in the corridor. As they watched, a very tall figure made its way out onto the landing, carrying something in its arms. The figure was clad in black armor with maroon markings. No features could be made due to the enclosing nature of the armor.

As the figure lowered the bundle in its arms to the ground, Syrana could see that it was actually the body of another soldier wearing armor similar in design to the first unknown they had encountered. The body structure was similar to the first unknown's as well but not much else could be discerned through the armor. The armor itself was burned and pitted in several places. There appeared to be some red liquid leaking out of several cracks in the plating.

One of the the diminutive figures placed its weapon down in order to pull some kind of canister from its waist and begin spraying it on the cracks in the prone figure's armor. The prone figure shifted and appeared to speak, but the words were indistinguishable. The black-clad figure turned to face Syrana and her companions before shouting something across in an alien language.

"Did you catch that?" Garrus muttered.

"No. Strange, seeing that the other alien we encountered spoke Basic quite fluently." Liara responded.

Not entirely sure what to say, Syrana attempted to lower her arms. She quickly put them back up, when she saw the black-clad figure swiftly grab an unusual gun off its back and level it at her.

_Well, that doesn't seem very friendly, _Syrana thought.

The figure barked something that sounded similar to what it had said before but harsher. When it received no reaction from Syrana, it tried again. The figure seemed almost confused at this point. It turned to one of the diminutive figures and said something. The little alien said something back that had the large figure fiddling around with something in its helmet.

"Can you understand me now?" It called a moment later.

Syrana was unsurprised by the voices gruffness and responded, "Yes, I can."

"Good. Now, would you please tell me who and what you are?"

"I am Syrana L'Vori on the Special Tactics and Reconnaissance Branch of the Citadel Military, better known as a Spectre. My companions are Liara T'Soni, a scientist specializing in the Protheans and 2nd Lieutenant Garrus Vakarian of the 361st Marine Battalion of the Turian Hegemony Military Forces." Syrana nodded towards each in turn. "May I ask who you are?"

"Special Operations Sangheili Ortin Farthas attached to the UNSC _Into the Night._ I'm surprised to see that you managed to survive down here. The Flood are, relentless to say the least."

"We've noticed." Syrana responded dryly.

* * *

**Sorry if its short. Just wanted to get it out there. I'll do my best to work on Chapter Six, but Life happens.**

**Reviews here:**

**Jacob: Hey, I still don't know if their even be a pairing for the Chief. After all, Spartans are solitary figures. Chief only bonded with Cortana since they went through so much together. Hell, I'd say that's a bit more than a sibling relationship.**

**The guy who left his name blank: Where the hell did you get your numbers? I'm more likely to trust Halopedia, an established source of information, than some random reviewer. And 50% the speed of LIGHT? That would warp the slug into a thin line of metal that would crumple as soon as it hit anything. At least you got the 600 tons right...**

**I guess I'm kinda getting fed-up with the OC's. Need to move on. Maybe character death soon.**

**Review pleez.**


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